8 Ways To Prevent Water Damage In Your Home

Table of Contents

1. Tips to Prevent Water Damage In Your Home[+]
   1. Practice Routine Maintenance
   2. Have An Efficient Drainage System
   3. Clean Your Gutters
   4. Identify Your Main Water Shut-Off Valve
   5. Drain Water Away From Your Foundation
   6. Maintain Your Water Pressure
   7. Inspect Your Roofs
   8. Install A Water Sensor

Is your home located in an area common with floods? Are you looking to secure your home and ensure its longevity? Preventing water damage is one way of safeguarding your home. Water damage can happen in various areas in your home, from the outside to the inside.

Are you wondering how to do water damage prevention in your home? This article will discuss eight ways you can do this for your compound and interior. Read on for the insight!

Tips to Prevent Water Damage In Your Home

1. Practice Routine Maintenance

Maintenance is the most effective way of preventing water damage in your home. Through maintenance, you’ll identify issues with your water pipes and appliances. Therefore, consider routine maintenance, inclusive of a checklist.

Conducting this maintenance will enable you to identify issues before they progress and cause water damage in your home.

During the inspection, you need to look out for leakages and loose joints that could contribute to water damage in your home. Your appliances, such as the refrigerator, air conditioning unit, and water heater, should also be part of the inspection checklist.

With the appliances, inspect the duct and piping systems, and look for leakages.

2. Have An Efficient Drainage System

Depending on its connection, a drainage system removes wastewater from your home into a sewer or stormwater drainage. For this system to be efficient, it has to be well-installed by your plumber. Here, it’s best to find more info about the plumbers in your area to ensure you settle on the best.

Your plumber needs to ensure they use the appropriate pipe accessories and their correct sizes. An accessory too large might lower the water flow pressure and lead to waterlogging in the drainage system.

On the other hand, with small-sized accessories, the pressure along the system will become too high, and the equipment might succumb to pressure and burst open, as previously discussed.

3. Clean Your Gutters

The gutters in your home aim to drain rainwater away from your roof. However, debris, leaves, and other objects might accumulate along your gutter. This accumulation will hinder the smooth draining of water. Thus, clogging is also possible if too much debris accumulates.

With this, cleaning out your gutters should be one of your priorities, especially before a wet season. It’s also best to consider installing gutter guards to prevent debris and other objects from getting into your gutter. This will reduce the amount of maintenance work you need to do.

4. Identify Your Main Water Shut-Off Valve

Most homeowners aren’t aware of the location of their main water shut-off valve, let alone know of its existence. A shut-off valve is an essential tool to help prevent water damage in your home.

Should there be a water leak in your home that’s extensive and you’re unable to manage the situation, you can turn off your home’s water flow.

Turning off the water will prevent water from damaging your home further until you fix the issue. Ask your plumber to show you the valve’s location. If none exists, they should install it and ensure it’s in an easily accessible area.

5. Drain Water Away From Your Foundation

The foundation of your house is the most significant element of your home; it’s what supports your home. Therefore, it needs to be in top-notch condition. Water is one of the major contributors to the deterioration of your foundation; you need to keep it away.

Consider installing downspouts in your gutter, and ensure it extends a few meters away from your foundation. Alternatively, build a small concrete pathway at the ground below the downspout; it’ll direct rainwater away and prevent water from pooling around the foundation. This way, water won’t seep into your foundation and cause damage to your property.

Another aspect you should factor in is the slope of your ground. Does it slope away from your foundation; is it flat? If your compound is flat or slopes towards your foundation, you need to reverse this.

It would help if you piled soil a few inches high around your foundation to create a high ground, ensuring water flows downwards away from the foundation.

6. Maintain Your Water Pressure

Your water pressure is one of the thin lines between causing and preventing water damage. Why? Excessive water pressure might lead to the bursting of your water pipes. This means you need to monitor your water’s pressure levels.

The first step is to measure the pressure of your water. You can use a pressure gauge to assist you in doing this. Take note that the pressure shouldn’t exceed 100 pounds per square inch(psi); you need to regulate the force if it does.

You can also consider visiting your local hardware and purchasing a pressure regulator. It’ll help with the regulation, as the name suggests. How? If the water pressure is normal, the size of its opening will remain standard.

Should the pressure be excessive, depending on your settings, its opening will increase in size to lower the pressure. With this technology, in no situation will your water pipes burst, leading to damage to your home.

7. Inspect Your Roofs

Your roof covers the entirety of your home. It’s also the most exposed element whose malfunction could wreak havoc in your home. Regarding water damage, you need to inspect the roof regularly.

Here, you should look for holes, missing parts, or thinning roofing material. These are the major contributors to home water damage, especially when it rains.

Through these elements, rainwater will find its way into your home and stain your ceilings, peel off your wall paint, and damage your household items, such as furniture.

Now, it’s one thing to identify an issue and another to rectify it. You might need to work with a roofing contractor to repair the damage and prevent water damage.

8. Install A Water Sensor

A water sensor will help you monitor and identify high water levels in your home. Consider placing them in areas where there’s a possibility of water leakages. This could be in your attic, basement, next to water-using appliances, such as your washing machine, and under the sinks.

The sensor will alert you of water present in their location, allowing you to inspect the area and identify the issue. With this, you’ll rectify the situation before it leads to water damage to your home.

Conclusion

No one wants to experience water damage in their homes. This is because the process of reversing the damage can be costly, including replacing your damaged household items.

Therefore, consider implementing the tips given herein to guide you in preventing water damage in your home. After all, your home is your biggest investment; you need to take care of it.

Thank you for reading!